I think that Solitary Man refers to one of the posts on my blog...
PerryPeabodyPosted:
Mon Jun 22, 2009 10:52 am
TxBluesMan wrote:
I think that Solitary Man refers to one of the posts on my blog...
I'm sure that you are right about that.
Welcome, TBM.
For the record, I read your blog and--very separate from your blog or anyone else's blog or what you wrote above--I agree that the warrant will be upheld.
This thread began as a "News Articles Only " thread and whenever I see newspaper articles, I post them--whether or not they reflect my views.
My view that the warrant will be upheld, however, in no way diminishes my opinion that LE wanted to get into that ranch compound and look around and would take the first (actually, any) opportunity to do so.
Again, welcome.
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Posts: 1600
Black-TulipPosted:
Mon Jun 22, 2009 11:02 am
TxBluesMan wrote:
I think that Solitary Man refers to one of the posts on my blog...
Joined: 23 Mar 2006
Posts: 6984
TonkPosted:
Mon Jun 22, 2009 2:21 pm
Perry - I agree that LE wanted to get into that Ranch and believed that crimes were being committed. I'd venture a guess that they had even been waiting for an opportunity for any grounds to get in there. That does not mean that there was anything improper with the way they handled the warrants -- and it remains true that the MSM has reported inaccuracies that are disfavorable to LE (like the name "Dale Barlow" being fed to the outcry caller). Even if LE had spent four years waiting by the phone for an outcry call from the Ranch, that does not mean they lacked probable cause or that they lied in their PC affidavit. They believed the calls to be legitimate outcries from a victim - that much is agreed, even by the defense. They HAD to investigate, they had to enter the They had probable cause - that's why the warrants will be upheld.
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Posts: 984
GuestPosted:
Mon Jun 22, 2009 4:08 pm
PerryPeabody wrote:
I'm sure that you are right about that.
Welcome, TBM.
For the record, I read your blog and--very separate from your blog or anyone else's blog or what you wrote above--I agree that the warrant will be upheld.
This thread began as a "News Articles Only " thread and whenever I see newspaper articles, I post them--whether or not they reflect my views.
My view that the warrant will be upheld, however, in no way diminishes my opinion that LE wanted to get into that ranch compound and look around and would take the first (actually, any) opportunity to do so.
Again, welcome.
Thanks for the welcome. It was my mistake in believing that you had bought into the media position, and my apologies.
I'm sure that LE wanted in, just as you, and that they would use any opportunity to (legally) get into the compound.
PerryPeabodyPosted:
Mon Jun 22, 2009 4:32 pm
Tonk wrote:
Perry - I agree that LE wanted to get into that Ranch and believed that crimes were being committed. I'd venture a guess that they had even been waiting for an opportunity for any grounds to get in there. That does not mean that there was anything improper with the way they handled the warrants -- and it remains true that the MSM has reported inaccuracies that are disfavorable to LE (like the name "Dale Barlow" being fed to the outcry caller). Even if LE had spent four years waiting by the phone for an outcry call from the Ranch, that does not mean they lacked probable cause or that they lied in their PC affidavit. They believed the calls to be legitimate outcries from a victim - that much is agreed, even by the defense. They HAD to investigate, they had to enter the They had probable cause - that's why the warrants will be upheld.
Hey! You're arguing too hard and trying to convince me of things I don't question (and if I did question them, wouldn't matter).
Joined: 24 Mar 2006
Posts: 1600
PerryPeabodyPosted:
Mon Jun 22, 2009 4:44 pm
TxBluesMan wrote:
Thanks for the welcome. It was my mistake in believing that you had bought into the media position, and my apologies.
I'm sure that LE wanted in, just as you, and that they would use any opportunity to (legally) get into the compound.
As to the obtaining the warrants, there will be found to have been in them, enough truth, good intentions, and true belief in the danger to people on the compound by the participants who obtained them. It would truly take a Solon as a judge for her to be able to find that the very warrants by which she permitted the removal of 400+ children from their parents and caregivers were so defective that they should not have been relied upon.
The judge has been batted around pretty well by the appellate and Supreme Court decisions; she's not going make a finding that she herself was taken in and wrong.
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Posts: 1600
TonkPosted:
Mon Jun 22, 2009 5:39 pm
PerryPeabody wrote:
Hey! You're arguing too hard and trying to convince me of things I don't question (and if I did question them, wouldn't matter).
Nah, I just like to hear myself talk
I guess I mistook your comment on the previous page. It doesn't matter between you and me, you're right -- but I do hate to see the LE get dogged by the press and then people start believing it, when in fact they acted properly. Know what I mean?
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Posts: 984
Black-TulipPosted:
Tue Jun 23, 2009 5:47 am
TxBluesMan wrote:
I'm sure that LE wanted in, just as you, and that they would use any opportunity to (legally) get into the compound.
Male facere qui vult numquam non causam invenit.
(Publilius Syrus, Sententia 336)
Joined: 23 Mar 2006
Posts: 6984
PerryPeabodyPosted:
Tue Jun 23, 2009 9:03 am
Black-Tulip wrote:
Male facere qui vult numquam non causam invenit.
(Publilius Syrus, Sententia 336)
Is this translation correct?
The one who wishes to do evil is never without a reason to do so.
Joined: 24 Mar 2006
Posts: 1600
Black-TulipPosted:
Tue Jun 23, 2009 9:19 am
PerryPeabody wrote:
Is this translation correct?
The one who wishes to do evil is never without a reason to do so.
That's correct. Lawyers know their Latin don't they?
We also have a similar proverb: Wie een hond wil slaan, vindt licht een stok.
Translation: He who wants to beat a dog will easily find a stick.
Rozita offered the stick. Now who's idea was that?
Joined: 23 Mar 2006
Posts: 6984
PerryPeabodyPosted:
Tue Jun 23, 2009 9:35 am
Black-Tulip wrote:
That's correct. Lawyers know their Latin don't they?
We also have a similar proverb: Wie een hond wil slaan, vindt licht een stok.
Translation: He who wants to beat a dog will easily find a stick.
Rozita offered the stick. Now who's idea was that?
That's a really good question.
Joined: 24 Mar 2006
Posts: 1600
TonkPosted:
Tue Jun 23, 2009 7:01 pm
Ahhhhhhh ..... Nothing like a fresh brewed conspiracy theory to start the day.
BT , I suppose you missed my greeting and glad tidings. Again, it's always a pleasure and I hope all is well with you and yours.
Joined: 25 Jul 2006
Posts: 984
Black-TulipPosted:
Wed Jun 24, 2009 4:40 am
Tonk wrote:
Ahhhhhhh ..... Nothing like a fresh brewed conspiracy theory to start the day.
BT , I suppose you missed my greeting and glad tidings. Again, it's always a pleasure and I hope all is well with you and yours.
Sorry I forgot my manners. Good morning and how are you? Actually I didn't miss your greetings, I was just kind of speechless.
This is a message board and not a stage. If I want to watch actors in play I prefer to go to the theater.
Anyway, your dialogue wasn't convincing. Not enough rehearsing? Lack of talent?
Bonis quod bene fit haud perit, Titus Maccius Platus
Plautus j/k Yes, I like those too.
What's the relation with the hoax call?
Joined: 23 Mar 2006
Posts: 6984
Black-TulipPosted:
Sat Jun 27, 2009 3:13 pm
Welfare check Posted on June 26, 2009, 3:11 pm, by Brooke, under FLDS, Yearning for Zion (YFZ).
On June 23, I sent the following email query to the Arizona Department of Economic Security:
“I would like to speak to a PIO [public information officer] with the Department of Economic Security about whether any individuals now known to be residents of the Yearning For Zion Ranch in Texas were receiving food stamp or financial assistance from the state of Arizona.
My interest is piqued by statements Flora Jessop has made, such as the following that appeared in a Lubbock (Texas) newspaper story:
For example, she said, she was told by an Arizona Department of Economic Security staffer recently that the agency crosschecked names from the FLDS “bishop’s list” and found that every family from Arizona living in the YFZ compound was receiving welfare benefits from Arizona.”
Here is the response I received today from Kevan Kaighn, a spokesman for the department:
“As you are aware, information about individuals or families receiving benefits from any of the Department of Economy Security’s programs is protected under privacy and confidentiality statutes.
However, I can say that Ms. Jessop’s quote is inaccurate.
The department takes all allegations of improper actions seriously. We investigate allegations of impropriety and take appropriate action.”
FLDS spokesman Willie Jessop said that no permanent residents at the ranch receive any welfare, from any state. He said he can not speak for people who visited or worked there temporarily but maintained homes and families in other states.
According to a 2008 Dallas Morning News story, Texas officials confirmed that no one living at the ranch had received any public assistance since the group set up there in 2004.
Texas FLDS raid: Defense attorney alleges search too broad, evidence tainted
By Brooke Adams
The Salt Lake Tribune
Updated: 07/13/2009 10:43:15 AM MDT
Texas authorities used a hoax call about abuse at a polygamous sect's Texas ranch as a pretext for an "unlimited, general search" in April 2008 -- a search law officers "had wanted for years to conduct," an attorney contends in a new court filing.
The size and scope of the investigation showed from the outset it was not about checking the well-being of a single abuse victim and her child, and authorities failed to make even basic attempts to corroborate claims made in the hoax calls, the 100-plus-page brief filed Monday by attorney Gerald Goldstein on behalf of Frederick Merril Jessop states. They also made misstatements in affidavits used to get court orders to enter the ranch, the attorneys argue, among them that the abuser was at the ranch and that child welfare investigators had been denied access to the community and alleged victims.
"In this case, there can be little doubt that the law enforcement authorities who engaged in this unprecedented raid were aware of popular misconceptions about the beliefs and practices of the FLDS Church, and acted on such misconceptions rather than on the facts," the filing states.
The brief argues that based on testimony presented during a four-day court hearing in May, all evidence seized during the investigation at the sect's Yearning For Zion Ranch should be suppressed in upcoming criminal trial of Jessop. Attorneys expect to make the same argument for 9 other FLDS defendants.
The motion does not include cases of two other men: Lloyd H. Barlow, a physician charged with misdemeanor counts of failure to report child abuse; and Warren S. Jeffs, the convicted prophet of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, who faces multiple felony charges based on allegations of spiritual marriages to underage girls.
There is no indication when 51st District Judge Barbara Walther will rule on the suppression motion; she also must rule on whether the men have standing, and thus an expectation of privacy, to fight the seizure.
A pretrial hearing set for the 10 men on July 23 and the first criminal trials are scheduled for October. They face a total of 19 criminal counts on charges ranging from bigamy, sexual assault, tampering with evidence to conducting a prohibited ceremony.
Texas authorities entered the ranch after a San Angelo domestic violence shelter received several distress calls from a purported 16-year-old named "Sarah Jessop Barlow" claiming abuse by her husband, Dale Evans Barlow. During the May hearing, a Texas ranger acknowledged the calls were a hoax staged by Rozita Swinton of Colorado.
Child welfare officials removed more than 460 children from the ranch and kept them in state custody for two months before higher court rulings returned them to their parents. Law officers also seized some 300 boxes of documents, photographs and other items during the investigation at the ranch, material now being used to prosecute the FLDS men.
In the joint brief, defense attorneys say the mens' Constitutional and state-protected rights were violated during the search of the ranch.
Texas Ranger Brooks Long and other officers failed to make a single call to corroborate or verify the caller's information and left out critical information about the caller in his affidavit seeking a search warrant, the brief states.
In that affidavit, Long also stated Dale Evans Barlow was at the ranch, though he had not confirmed the man's whereabouts and knew, as a condition of probation for a previous offense, was not allowed to leave Arizona.
Long also knew, but failed to tell the judge, the caller had only confirmed her husband's name after a hotline worker supplied it. Officers also did not check out her claims of having been treated at a local hospital and even had "no idea" what the victim looked like, the brief states, despite Schleicher County Sheriff David Doran's "great contacts" with former FLDS members.
By April 6, 2008, when officers sought a second search warrant to enter the sect's temple, they knew but failed to disclose that Dale Evans Barlow was not at the ranch and that they had not located anyone named Sarah Barlow.
The original search warrant itself was overly broad and failed to list which of the 19 residences at the ranch were to be searched; instead it treated the ranch as a single household, the brief states.
The order given to Texas child welfare investigators, like the warrant, authorized officials to gather information related to Sarah Jessop Barlow, her infant and Dale Evans Barlow. But Child welfare investigators told law officers they had a court order to interview all girls at the ranch between the ages of 7 and 17.
"CPS agents and their lawyer's repeated assertions to law enforcement that they had obtained such an order from this Honorable Court appears to have been fabricated," the brief states.
Law enforcement provided security during those interviews, postponing any search for the caller or her abuser because, as Texas Ranger Brooks Long testified in May, "that was the game plan we set into place." That plan, based on testimony of other officers, was to seek evidence of "any crimes against the children present" at the ranch, the brief states.
Officers began that search only after Child Protective Service workers had interviewed the young girls, read personal journals found in the schoolhouse and informed law officers they had found evidence of underage and plural marriages.
"These revelations changed the entire focus and scope of the ensuring search," the brief states.
"In short, it is clear that the authorities used a hoax phone call as an excuse for staging a massively intrusive raid upon a disfavored religious group," the defense team argues. "Under the guise of looking for a man they knew was not there and a child that did not exist, Texas authorities conducted a general search to see what they could find."
The defense also argues that the seizure and dissemination of church records, including instructions and revelations from Jeffs, violated the mens' religious rights because it "desecrates the divine" and has a "chilling effect" on the seeking and giving of guidance to church members, the brief states.
"Defendants cannot freely exercise their religion if the state continues to retain and/or utilize these religious documents in these proceedings," the defense argues. Nor has the state shown a compelling need to use the information from the records, their brief states.
http://www.sltrib.com/polygamy/ci_12826160
Last edited by PerryPeabody on Mon Jul 13, 2009 9:45 pm; edited 1 time in total
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Posts: 1600
PerryPeabodyPosted:
Mon Jul 13, 2009 6:10 pm
FLDS have no right to challenge search, Texas A.G. says
By Brooke Adams
The Salt Lake Tribune
Updated: 07/13/2009 04:51:34 PM MDT
In its closing argument brief, the Texas Attorney General's Office said the FLDS defendants failed to make their case to throw out evidence seized from the Yearning For Zion Ranch.
The defendants failed to show they individually held or controlled any property at the ranch and thus have no standing to argue their privacy was violated in the search, the state's 14-page brief said. The document was filed in June but released to the media Monday.
The state said law-enforcement officers had no reason to doubt the abuse claims, which fit with what they already knew about the sect. The state specifically defended actions of Texas Ranger Brooks Long, saying he accurately portrayed what he knew and included all relevant facts in an affidavit used to get a search warrant.
It was not until 10 days after officers entered the ranch that Long learned calls to a Texas crisis hotline had come from outside the ranch, the brief states.
In addition, officers found further evidence of alleged crimes in "plain view" as they searched the ranch, including evidence of bigamy and sexual assault of children.
Texas judge closes last custody case in YFZ raid
FLDS » Fifteen-year-old girl placed in permanent custody of her aunt.
By Brooke Adams
The Salt Lake Tribune
Updated: 07/23/2009 05:25:29 PM MDT
The last FLDS child in Texas state custody is home -- but not with her parents.
A Texas judge signed an order Thursday permanently placing the last child taken from the polygamous sect's ranch into a relative's care, ending the state's involvement in the massive case.
The girl, now 15, was allegedly spiritually married to FLDS leader Warren S. Jeffs in July 2006 when she was 12. She was the only child of the 439 removed during a state investigation at the Yearning for Zion Ranch in April 2008 still in state custody.
Tom Green County Judge Barbara Walther ruled that Naomi Carlisle, an aunt, will have permanent managing conservatorship of the girl and has exclusive right to determine where she lives.
Walther granted Barbara Jessop, the girl's mother, supervised visits with her daughter, to be overseen by Carlisle. The judge limited the rights of the girl's father, Merril Jessop, to providing $180 a month in child support and getting her medical insurance.
Barbara Jessop also was ordered to pay Carlisle $180 a month to support her daughter.
The judge said the girl is to have no contact with Warren S. Jeffs, the imprisoned leader of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.
"The last child is now back with a member of her family, and they can all move on with their lives," said a statement from Valerie Malara of Colorado and Brett Pritchard of Texas, Barbara Jessop's attorneys.
Willie Jessop, a spokesman for the sect, said: "We promised there would be no child left behind, and this shows it."
The state initially sought to terminate the Jessops' rights or place the teen in permanent foster care. But in May, Texas child welfare officials agreed to let the girl live with Carlisle, ending nine months of foster care.
"We believe all of these children are safer because of our intervention," said a statement from Anne Heiligenstein, commissioner of the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services. "The families now know that the state of Texas will not tolerate sexual abuse disguised as 'spiritual marriage.' These families also know that if abuse is reported again, we will respond."
While Walther ended the state's involvement in the girl's case, she ordered Carlisle to give yearly reports on the girl's status.
http://www.sltrib.com/polygamy/ci_12901308
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Posts: 1600
PerryPeabodyPosted:
Thu Jul 23, 2009 9:37 pm
FLDS custody case officially ends in Texas; alleged 'bride' dropped from court oversight
July 23rd, 2009 @ 4:28pm
By Ben Winslow
(AP file photo)
SALT LAKE CITY -- The nation's largest child custody case has ended quietly with a judge's order.
The battle for children from the Utah-based Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints' ranch in Eldorado, Texas, was over Thursday when a judge signed an order effectively ended court oversight of a 15-year-old girl. She was the last of the 439 children taken into state protective custody when Texas child welfare authorities raided the ranch last year.
"The court has stated that they will no longer continue to review the placement, progress and welfare of the child," said Valerie Malara, a lawyer representing the girl's mother, Barbara Jessop. "The attorney ad litem is dismissed out of the case, CASA's dismissed out of the case, and the state is out of the case as well."
The order, signed Thursday by 51st District Judge Barbara Walther, places the girl in the custody of her aunt. Her parents, YFZ Ranch leader Merril Jessop and Barbara Jessop, will have visitation. The aunt, Naomi Carlisle, can determine how much that will be.
A copy of the order, obtained by KSL Newsradio on Thursday, prohibited the girl from having any contact with FLDS leader Warren Jeffs.
The girl is alleged to have been married at age 12 to Jeffs. She was ordered back into foster care last year after Walther ruled Barbara Jessop failed to protect her from abuse. At one point, Texas Child Protective Services sought to have "permanent managing conservatorship" over the girl.
"I think it took everybody coming to their senses that this child belongs back with her family," Malara told KSL Newsradio. "Even though people may not agree with the FLDS doctrine, the child wanted to be back with her family and her community. Every other child had been returned except for (the girl)."
Approximately 439 children were removed from the YFZ Ranch in April 2008 when CPS responded on a call from someone claiming to be a pregnant, 16-year-old trapped in an abusive, polygamous marriage to an older man. The call is now regarded as a hoax, but authorities say that once on site they found other evidence of abuse.
Texas made a case of a culture of abuse at the ranch, with girls groomed to become child brides and boys groomed to be sexual predators. However, the children were all ordered returned to their families two months later when an appeals court and the Texas Supreme Court ruled the state acted improperly and that the children were not at immediate risk of abuse.
On Thursday, CPS officials stood by their actions.
"We believe all of these children are safer because of our intervention," DFPS Commissioner Anne Heiligenstein said in a statement. "The families now know that the state of Texas will not tolerate sexual abuse disguised as 'spiritual marriage.' These families also know that if abuse is reported again, we will respond."
While the custody case imploded, the criminal case moves forward. A dozen men, including Jeffs and the girl's father, Merril Jessop, were indicted on charges linked to underage marriages. Shocking photos of the girl kissing Jeffs were released in the custody case as CPS sought to show it had evidence of at least a dozen underage marriages.
Jeffs, 52, was convicted in Utah of rape as an accomplice for performing a marriage between a then-14-year-old girl and her 19-year-old cousin. He faces similar charges in Arizona.
Some of the men charged in Texas appeared in court on Thursday, where Walther scheduled trials beginning this fall and stretching into 2010. The judge has yet to rule on a defense motion to toss the search warrants because of the hoax call.
http://www.ksl.com/?nid=148&sid=7270444
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Posts: 1600
PerryPeabodyPosted:
Thu Jul 23, 2009 9:40 pm
Trial dates set for sect members facing criminal charges
By Matt Phinney (Contact)
gosanangelo.com
Originally published 05:16 p.m., July 23, 2009
Updated 06:09 p.m., July 23, 2009
Trial dates on charges related to sexual abuse of children, bigamy and other charges have been set for 10 men from the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.
Attorneys for the defendants, indicted earlier this year by a Schleicher County grand jury, and the state ironed out the dates Thursday afternoon during a status conference in the Tom Green County Courthouse.
The schedule of trials runs to the end of next year.
Dates for Raymond Merril Jessop, charged with sexual abuse of a child, had already been set — a pretrial hearing Aug. 10 and a trial Oct. 26.
At the beginning of the conference, 51st District Judge Barbara Walther left the room for about 20 minutes, leaving the lawyers huddled over a schedule sheet to set proposed hearing schedules among themselves.
The final schedule approved by the judge is as follows with the defendants, pretrial date, trial date and charges:
-- Allan Eugene Keate, Nov. 19, Dec. 7, sexual abuse of a child.
-- Michael Emack, Jan. 7, 2010, Jan. 25, 2010, sexual abuse of a child.
-- Merrill Leroy Jessop, Feb. 25, 2010, March 8, 2010, sexual abuse of a child and bigamy.
-- Lehi Barlow Jeffs, April 15, 2010, April 26, 2010, sexual abuse of a child and bigamy.
-- Abram Harker Jeffs, May 13, 2010, June 7, 2010, sexual abuse of a child and bigamy.
-- Keith William Dutson, July 15, 2010, July 26, 2010, sexual abuse of a child.
-- Wendell Loy Nielson, Sept. 2, 2010, Sept. 7, 2010, three counts of bigamy.
-- Frederick Merril Jessop, Oct. 4, 2010, Oct. 11, 2010, conducting an unlawful marriage ceremony involving a minor.
-- Leroy Johnson Steed, Nov. 23, 2010, Dec. 6, 2010, first-degree felony sexual assault of a child, second-degree felony bigamy, third-degree felony bigamy and third-degree felony tampering with physical evidence.
During the conference, Walther said the pretrials would be held at 10 a.m. in San Angelo. Between now and the first trial, attorneys are looking at ways to get a jury pool from Schleicher County while having the trials in San Angelo.
Walther has yet to rule on the defendants’ motions filed in May to suppress evidence taken from the Yearning For Zion Ranch near Eldorado. An April 3, 2008, raid on the ranch led to the removal of more than 400 children from the ranch and the seizure of documents and other material.
The massive child custody action required more than a year to sort out. In a separate matter, Walther on Thursday also approved the permanent custody transfer of a 15-year-old girl from Child Protective Services to a relative, according to CPS.
The girl, an alleged wife of Warren Jeffs, was placed with Naomi Carlisle, a distant relative, in May on a trial basis. The May decision came at the request of CPS, as well as from attorneys for the girl and her mother, Barbara Jessop.
Arizona jail force-fed sect leader Jeffs
The Associated Press
Originally published 02:37 p.m., August 4, 2009
Updated 02:37 p.m., August 4, 2009
BEAVER, Utah --- Polygamous sect leader Warren Jeffs has resumed eating after a period of fasting in jail that left doctors so concerned about an "imminent" risk of death that he was forcibly fed, Arizona officials said Tuesday.
"He has resumed eating and he is recovering, but he's got to continue to be monitored because his health is still at risk," Mohave County sheriff's spokeswoman Trish Carter said.
Carter said she did not know when Jeffs first began refusing food or when he resumed eating.
The Kingman, Ariz., jail began force-feeding Jeffs on Friday. In a letter filed with the Mohave Superior Court the same day, the jail's medical director said Jeffs had been refusing food and was no longer urinating. Medical Director Kirsten Mortenson said Jeffs' vital signs were worsening and he was suffering from malnutrition.
"This deterioration will continue to accelerate and become harder to reverse the longer it persists," Mortenson wrote in a letter to Judge Steven F. Conn. "His death could be imminent without immediate medical intervention."
Contacted by cell phone Tuesday by The Associated Press, Mortenson said federal privacy laws prevented her from making any comment.
"I can't even tell you if I've seen him," she said.
Jeffs, 53, is the head of the Utah-based Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. He is jailed awaiting trial on charges related to alleged underage marriages involving sect girls. Jeffs has been in Kingman since February 2008 following a Utah conviction on two counts of rape as an accomplice for his role in the 2001 marriage of an underage follower to her husband.
On Tuesday, Jeffs' Tucson, Ariz., attorney Michael Piccarreta said he did not know the status of his client's medical condition, but that the situation was not unusual.
"Mr. Jeffs is a deeply religious man and sometimes engages in lengthy religious practices while in jail. When he does, he declines food and beverages and this sometimes occurs," he said. "If you look at other religious and political people who have been wrongly incarcerated, you'll see others have gone through this."
Piccarreta, who represents Jeffs in two pending criminal cases, said he believed Mohave County handled the situation appropriately. Jeffs is more than 6 feet tall and has always been slight, Piccarreta noted.
"There's not a lot of extra pounds," he said.
A former fugitive on the FBI's Most Wanted list, Jeffs was arrested in August 2006 during a traffic stop near Las Vegas. While in a southern Utah jail awaiting trial, he suffered from depression and was hospitalized after an attempted suicide in January 2007. Throughout his incarceration he has been known to fast and spend long periods on his knees in prayer.
Jeffs is also facing criminal charges of bigamy and sexual assault of a child. The charges stem from information gathered by authorities during a raid on a church ranch near Eldorado last year.
Texas attorneys: Law eventually prevailed in FLDS case Justice » State didn't follow procedures in taking away children.
By Brooke Adams
The Salt Lake Tribune
Updated: 09/26/2009 02:04:13 PM MDT
Two Texas attorneys who led the legal fight that returned FLDS children to their parents last year said that, after early missteps, the state's justice system worked in an outcome that could apply to any parent.
"What we think is important about this case and this decision is it doesn't just pertain to FLDS, it doesn't just pertain to the polygamous culture, it pertains to every parent," said Amanda Chisholm, an attorney with Texas Rio Grande Legal Aid. "It requires the state to actually treat you as you, look at what you are doing, look at what you are going to do based on the evidence. I think those are important constitutional rights that apply across the board to every parent, regardless of religion or family makeup."
Chisholm and attorney Julie Balovich, who also works for the nonprofit legal firm, spoke at a legal conference Friday at Snowbird.
The two attorneys won a Texas Third Court of Appeals ruling -- upheld by the state's Supreme Court -- that a trial judge lacked evidence to keep 430 FLDS children in state custody.
The children were removed in April 2008 from the Yearning For Zion Ranch in Eldorado, Texas. The ranch is home to members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. They spent two months in foster care before going home again.
The attorneys said the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services and 51st District Judge Barbara Walther failed to follow procedures for removing children
from their parents, beginning with the group case filing and continuing through en masse hearings.
But in the end, Texas' justice system worked, Balovich said -- not only for parents, but in making the state follow the law, too.
"The law was ultimately upheld and there were Texas laws that applied, and the point is they weren't followed but ultimately two courts recognized that," Balovich said.
Others who spoke at the conference included Chief Deputy Utah Attorney General Kirk Torgensen; defense attorney Grant W.P. Morrison; civil liberties attorney Brian Barnard; historian Ken Driggs; Allie, a plural wife; and Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff. The conference, "Family or Felony: Polygamy and the Law," was sponsored by Principle Voices, a nonprofit advocacy group that represents Fundamentalist Mormon communities.
It was the Tom Green case in 2001 that brought the issue of underage marriages to Shurtleff's attention -- along with the fact no one was investigating or prosecuting the cases. "It shocked me," Shurtleff said. "Why was nobody prosecuting, are you kidding me?"
That led to his tailored approach, focused on children and serious crimes: "Child-bride marriages, assault, sexual assault, spousal abuse, child abuse, incest and perhaps welfare type crimes, white collar crimes, tax evasions and tax fraud."
That approach has been criticized by some who believe the state also should prosecute adults in polygamous relationships.
"If I start with one case, a test case or whatever, don't I have to keep going?" Shurtleff asked. "Do we have the resources in the state of Utah to keep going? We don't. It's not a decision whether I agree or disagree with law, whether I turn a blind eye to a crime, it's do we have the resources to prosecute a thousand cases or more of adult, consensual bigamy. And then take the children of those marriages to the tune of thousands."
Shurtleff also offered his opinion of a Canadian judge's decision this week to quash polygamy cases against polygamists James Oler and Winston Blackmore.
"It was a bad decision," Shurtleff said, and the public outcry over it has focused on evidence that Blackmore married one or more underage girls years ago.
He urged the Fundamentalist Mormons in the audience to speak out about underage marriages, too, which would help change public perception that the practice is accepted in polygamous communities.
He also encouraged them to work "within the law to change the law" regarding bigamy, which the Fundamentalist Mormon community would like reduced from a felony to a misdemeanor in cases involving consenting adults.
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